Yes, minister: tweeting could be the new way of working

By Ari Sharp

BLOGGING, tweeting and the liberal use of Facebook … far from being a hindrance to getting on with the job, these might soon become a significant part of life in the public service.

A government-commissioned report has recommended the public service turn to new media for ''crowd sourcing'' ideas to elicit feedback as part of an effort to put bureaucrats more in touch with the people they are employed to serve.

''Engaging with the tools and platforms of social networking should be accepted as a valuable and productive way for public servants to share and develop their expertise,'' the draft report says in its endorsement of so-called web 2.0 applications.

Ideas include using a blog format to allow for comments on policy proposals and giving public servants the freedom to participate in online discussion hosted on other sites.

The report also calls for a more open approach to government data, labelling public sector information as a ''national resource'' that ought to be free, easily accessed, based on open standards and able to be used in non-government applications known as mash-ups.

At a conference in October a series of new applications was launched, giving a glimpse into the potential projects that could thrive if government information was made more available. Among them was ''It's Buggered, Mate'', which allowed people to report broken public facilities and MyRepresentative, which allowed people easily to locate their representatives at all levels of government.

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The winner of the event was LobbyClue, now named LobbyLens, which charted relationships between lobbyists and government tenders. Alexander Sadleir, a designer of the site, said more open data would not only allow for better scrutiny of government but provide opportunities for academics and other government agencies to make use of the information.

''By releasing government data for easy reuse, new applications can be developed where a need arises but where government may lack the resources or prerogative to achieve it,'' he said.

One barrier to the data being made available was the copyright protection applied to government material. The report recommends public sector information be licensed under Creative Commons, which allows other people to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the material as long as it attributed.

Nicholas Gruen, an economist and the chairman of the task force behind the report, said: ''The requirement for everyone to go and get permission and the possibility that the permission might be revoked subsequently, both of those things are hugely chilling on innovation downstream.'' The report canvasses the idea of ''info-philanthropy'' in which organisations devoted to developing information-sharing platforms could claim charitable status for tax purposes.

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The Community and Public Sector Union cautiously welcomed the draft report but noted the need for clear instructions to be given on the use of social media, and for workloads to be properly managed.

Feedback on the report can be given via gov2.net.au until next Wednesday. A final report is due by the end of the month.